Scythe Fuma CPU Cooler Review

Overview

It’s been some time since we’ve seen anything from CPU Cooler specialist Scythe, the last CPU Cooler that we looked at was way back in August 2014! That was the silver award winning Tatsumi. Today I will be taking a look at one of Scythe’s latest CPU Coolers the Scythe Fuma (SCFM-1000).

‘Tracing its roots back to renowned Mine 2, Fuma was kept smaller without sacrificing performance. Countless hours spend on testing and optimizing formed a cooling device measuring 149 mm in height. To compensate the smaller surface, our researchers put a great deal of effort in tinkering a new baseplate design as well as redrafting the fin structure. Putting considerable effort in optimizing these two areas, a new twin tower CPU cooler with compact measures providing high-end performance was created. It ensures reliable cooling to all processors available, while fitting the scarce space conditions of small PC cases.’

The Scythe Fuma arrived at pcG in a medium sized square box that’s predominantly black. Looking at the front of the box I’m still not too sure what the image depicts, if anything at all! But what I can see (I think) is smoke, and that’s not a good thing! 🙂 Other than that the front of the box also shows us the brand and product name as well as the compatibility listing for both Intel and AMD. While over on the left Scythe have chosen to highlight compatibility for Intel’s latest Socket LGA 1151 (Skylake).

The left side of the box provides a handful of line drawings of the Fuma, with all of the dimensions shown, which is always nice to see. In addition to this there’s a specifications (see Specifications/Features below for more information) listing in English and various other languages.

The right hand side of the box features an additional set of images of the Fuma and its associated fans, as well as a brief description of the Hyper Precision Mounting System (H.P.M.S.), the Twin Tower with 6 Heatpipes, the Dual Slip Stream 120 PWM Fans, the High Compatibility to Various PC Cases and the Triple Fan Mount Structure. The information is actually very hard to read due to the colour of the font, although the camera actually picked it up better than my eyes did… 😮

The top of the box is similar to the front of the box, although this time we’ve got an image of the Fuma CPU Cooler itself, along with some more smoke! I’m still not sure that smoke is a good way to promote a CPU Cooler! 😉

Luckily on opening the box we don’t find any more smoke and we find that the heatsink and its associated fans are reasonably well packaged and everything appears to be undamaged.

Within the box other than the CPU Cooler heatsink itself and the two 120mm fans, we find a small white box of accessories. This includes an installation guide, backplate, plastic washers and spacer, mounting screws etc (inc wrench), spring clips, mounting brackets, thermal paste and a dual fan adapter cable.

At the time of writing the Scythe Fuma is retailing on Amazon for approximately £39 and comes with a 2 year warranty.

Please note that an original backplate with screw mounting is needed for installation on mainboards with AMD sockets. Please check before buying if the backplate is fixed by screws (example)! If the backplate uses plastic-pins, mounting of this cooler is not possible.

First Impressions

First impressions of the Scythe Fuma are that it’s actually a pretty big cooler, bigger than I thought anyway! It seem’s well made too, although the fins are a little thin for my liking. It’s actually almost square and because of the lack of an offset, it is likely to cause compatibility problem with Memory/RAM, assuming we mount the fan on the right that is…

Looking at the front of the Scythe Fuma we can clearly see the six heatpipes running through the heatsinks. There are six in total and these are sealed within (not exposed) the baseplate, that itself is made from Copper and plated with Nickel.

When looking at the Fuma from the side we again can clearly see those six heatpipes, and now (from the image above right) we can clearly see the twin stack design with no offset. This is likely to cause compatibility with Memory/RAM should we chose to mount one of the fans on this side. If we look carefully we can also see the rather unusual arrangement of the fins that are at opposing angles to one another. No sure if this is by design or not to be honest!? The centre section that’s cut-away is for the crossbar that holds the CPU to the support brackets.

As you can see the top of the Scythe Fuma features two highly polished fins as there’s no (special) top plate to speak of. Here we also see the ends of the six heatpipes, but rather disappointingly no Scythe logo or brand name! What we can see though is the irregular shape of the fins themselves and the effect that it gives, which is kind of cool…

Looking at the Nickel plated Cooper baseplate we can clearly see that the six heatpipes live within the base and are not exposed, although this is not necessarily a bad thing! Don’t forget to peel of that baseplate protection label before installing! 😉

Although the Scythe Fuma can accommodate three fans it is only supplied with two. The two fans (SY1225SL12M-CJP) are 120mm in diameter, are PWM controlled and have a maximum rotational speed of 1400RPM. They have a rated maximum noise output of 28.0dBA and kick out a maximum Air Flow of 79.0CFM.

So far so good then; the Scythe Fuma seems (at first glance) like a pretty good CPU Cooler! The cooler appears well made (although it’s not going to challenge the likes of Noctua) and it looks pretty cool (no pun intended) too! My only worry is that the lack of an offset means that you’re likely to run into difficulty if you wish to place one of the fans on the right (above the Memory/RAM), or if you want to fit three fans…

The first task before installing the Scythe Fuma is to identify all of the parts needed (see above) for our Intel LGA 1551 socket. The instructions supplied are quite clear and helped identify all of the parts needed. This comprised of the backplate, four white washers, four thumb nuts, two brackets, four screws, crossbar and a further two screws. There’s a fair few parts here and probably still more than really is needed, but we’ve seen worse…

The first task was to secure the backplate to the back of the Motherboard, this requires the backplate itself, the four white washers and the four thumb screws. Unusually the thumb screws go through the top of the motherboard (over the washers) and screw into the backplate on the other side. It’s all a bit ‘fingers and thumbs’ but easy enough to be fair. The end result can be seen above left.

Note the orientation of the back plate on the back of the Motherboard (above centre). Note how the two screws on the back of the Motherboard poke through the backplate on the right hand side. Also ensure to use the correct hole on the backplate for the 1151 installation, see supplied instructions…

With the main backplate in place it is now possible to mount the brackets, again note the orientation of the brackets (facing upwards). Each bracket is simply secured by way of two screws per side.

With the mounting assembly all in place the last task was to fit the Fuma heatsink itself. This requires the cross bar and another two screws (well little bolts really). These screws are very difficult to get to, and the supplied wrench is next to useless! But with a bit of patience I managed to get both screws in place and tightened each screw alternately, using just a turn at a time. This ensures that the heatsink is pulled down horizontally atop the CPU. Do not tighten one side first and then the other as this will pull the heatsink down at an angle and result in poorer cooling.

With the heatsink in place I could now set about installing the two 120m fans. The fans are secured by way of wire clips that first clip to the fan and then to the heatsink. Fitting was actually pretty easy, although cabling up with so much cable and a fan splitter cable doesn’t help the aesthetics much…

Initially I placed the fans in what I would call the normal positions – one in the middle and the other on the right (above the RAM). But due to the poor Memory/RAM clearance of the Fuma the right hand fan sticks up in the air a little too far for my liking and almost rests on the RAM modules themselves! See images above.

As the Scythe Fuma offers a fair bit of flexibility, due to the fact that you can fit up to three fans, I decided to install one in the centre and one on the left instead. Thus avoiding any king of memory clearance issues. With that done I was able to line the fan up better on the heatsink and the whole assembly’s aesthetics looked better too.

So in the end the install of the Scythe Fuma was pretty straightforward (although there’s still too many parts IMHO!) as long as you opt to install the second fan on the left rather than the more traditional right!

Testing Methodology/Setup

For CPU Cooler testing, we here at pcGameware run Prime95 for a 15 minute period. During this period the temperature is monitored via ASRock’s F-Stream utility and the CPU temperature recorded. Between each stress test we allow a 15 minute cool-down to allow for more accurate results. To adjust the fan speed we simply use the UEFI. A close eye is also kept on the ambient temperature, with the maximum being recorded for each run, this allows us to calculate the Delta temperature (Core – Ambient = Delta). Each run was performed with the Intel Core i5-6600K CPU at the following frequencies: 3.9GHz (Stock) and 4.4GHz (using the ASRock OC Tweaker, shown in the images below), all results have also been recorded with CPU-Z.

* Please note: To ascertain the maximum and minimum noise levels produced by our test CPU Coolers, the dBA is recorded at a distance of 1 metre from the cooler, with all case fans unplugged to isolate the sound in question.

Processor speed is set using the OC Tweaker tab within the UEFI, “Disabled” for stock speeds (3.9GHz) and “Turbo 4.4GHz” for the overclock tests. It should be noted that changing the OC settings resets the Fan Speeds, so these are checked on the next reboot and reset to “Full Speed” (see above right). All the fans installed in the system are set to 100% speed using the displayed settings, this is simple with the ASRock UEFI with the option of “Full Speed” being available for all system fans.

Hardware Performance

As stated above, to make our performance tests easier to follow and to get the most accurate recordings, all of the following tests have been carried out with case fans set at 100% and the Scythe Fuma fans also set at 100%.

As you can see from the list above it’s pretty short! That’s because we’ve recently upgraded all of our Test Rigs to the new Skylake platform and this (unfortunately) means that all of the past results are no longer valid for comparison. But we have to upgrade at some point, so please bear with us as over time this list will surely grow…

As you can see the Scythe Fuma appears near the bottom of our (currently) somewhat short list, but this is a little deceptive. As the cooling performance is actually quite good with a maximum CPU Core temperature of 45.0 (23.0 Delta) degrees Celsius! If you look at the Delta you’ll see that the Fuma is only two degrees from the top spot held by the Alpenföhn Atlas and only one degree behind the AIO Water cooler (NZXT Kraken X31). Not to bad really, let’s see what happens when we add a little more voltage and up the Frequency to 4.4GHz…

Wow, well I wasn’t expecting that! 🙂 The Scythe Fuma has jumped straight into the number one spot with a maximum CPU Core temperature of just 58.0 while overclocked at 4.4GHz with a voltage of 1.312v. That might be only one degree cooler than the Alpenföhn Atlas, but it’s still the top spot! I’m not sure I need to say much more than that to be honest. But what we do need to talk about is the noise…

Acoustics

With two 120mm fans spinning at their maximum speed of 1400RPM, there’s no doubt that the Scythe Fuma put out a fair amount of noise! We measured a maximum of 44dBA with our test equipment and that’s pretty loud and probably too loud for most! But there was also an associated whine/harmonic sound that accompanied the noise which actually made it far worse. Obviously this noise/performance ratio can be controlled via the PWM control on your Motherboard. So it’s down to you to find that happy medium between noise and cooling performance. We found that with the fans at 85% there was far less whine and we only lost one degree in cooling performance! 😉

Final Thoughts

The Scythe Fuma SCFM-1000 has caught me a little off guard as I wasn’t expecting to be quite as impressed as I am! Not only is this a good looking CPU Cooler, but it’s also the best cooler when it comes to performance that we’ve tested so far. Add to that a retail price of below £40, and we have the icing on an already tasty cake!
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The Scythe Fuma arrived at pcG in a medium sized black box with the cooler and fans within adequately packaged. What was surprising (considering the size of the box) was that the cooler itself is actually quite large, measuring in at 137 (W) x 149 (H) x 130 (D) mm (with fans) and weighing in at approximately 920g. It’s twin stack, twin fan cube like design is uncomplicated but it looks good and purposeful. The Fuma also seems to be well made, although the fins are a little thin for my liking.

Installation of the Scythe Fuma was actually easier (other than fan positioning) than expected especially when we consider the (relatively) large number of parts required. Although, numerous other manufacturers can achieve the same thing with far less parts! Once the cooler’s heatsink was in place the only real issue with the Fuma arose. Due to the stack not being offset in any way the heatsink hangs over the memory slots too far, making any form of tall Memory/RAM incompatible. Even our low profile (ish) G.Skill Ripjaws 4 modules were really too tall, forcing the fan (if attached to this side) to sit too high on the heatsink. The solution was to fit the fan to the other side, thus avoiding such problems. This was no issue for the Fuma as it’s compatible with up to three 120mm fans anyway.

With the cooler in place it was time for some testing and in our stock 3.9GHz test the Scythe Fum performed well and as expected really. With a maximum temperature of 45.0 (23.0 Delta) degrees the Fuma was only a couple of degrees shy of our top performing CPU Cooler the Alpenföhn Atlas. But what I wasn’t prepared for was the result of our overclocked test! With the CPU now at 4.4GHz and the voltage bumped up to 1.312v, the Scythe Fuma put in a great performance with at CPU Core temperature of just 58.0 (36.0 Delta) making it the best CPU Cooler we’ve seen so far.

Of course all of this great performance comes at a price, and the price we pay here (with the Fuma) is in the form of noise. With its two 120mm 1400RPM fans running at 100%, the Fuma kicks out a lot of noise, we measured 44dBA with our test equipment. What made it worse though was the fact that there was an associated whine/harmonic that made it all the more irritating, not something many of us could live with 24-7. Of course thanks to PWM control this noise/performance ratio can be adjusted via the UEFI for the Motherboard. We got some great results at around 85% fan speed with only a degree in performance dropped! 🙂

There’s actually a lot to like about the Scythe Fuma, only the lack of an offset design that really forces you to mount the second fan on the other side, holds it back. Other than that it offers great cooling in a good looking package for very little money, and we cant say fairer than that.

Hi, did you try putting that memory in the closest slot? Did it fit nicely? I’m really interested in this cooler, but the lack of memory clearance is actually a big let-down, :/
I’m having a really hard time on finding a good cooler for a reasonable price.
It looks good, performs well and isn’t expensive.

Hey!, My Scythe Fuma came with 4 aluminum washers to be put on in between the rail and the screws… The plastic bag that contains them says “LGA 1151 Only” I believe those are to avoid overtighten the screws, thus causing damage to the CPU/Mobo but I’m not sure tho…

Right now I’m getting some mixed results with this cooler: Mounted on a I7 6700k – Gigabyte Z170x Gaming 7 with Arctic MX-4 inside a Corsair 400R, when running Prime 95 28.9 I get a Max Core Temp of 74ºC with 25º C Ambiet Temp after a 10min run (using HwInfo x64 v5-36-2960), running Prime 95 26.6 I get Max of around 65-70ºC… All this on STOCK (no turbo) with a Max VCore of 1.244 acording to HwInfo.. Maybe those washers are avoiding proper contact? What you guys think?